I thought 2010 was supposed to more stable graphically.  Why do I have the same issues that I had before?  This is more of a rant than looking for a solution, but if you guys know something I don't please share.

I apply a series of appearances, save and close.  Throughout the day I reopen and close the file usually without issue.  Occaisionally (20% of the time)  the appearances are mangled.  WHY?  And when I say mangled I mean it.  For example, after applying polished chrome to a face and black to the body, I close and reopen and the chrome is literally gone, not just failing to appear, but not even listed in the appearances folder.  Instead that face is black and the default gray is applied to the body.  Huh?  I feel like I'm crazy sometimes.  Another example, this almost makes sense, applying colors to a series of faces that are separated by split lines.  Sometimes the appearances flip to their adjacent face(was the same face "before" the split) if I edit the split line sketch.  That I can handle, but I have this happen even without editing a split line.  Sometimes all I have to do is apply appearance in the part then go over to the assembly it is in, and it has flipped.  You go back to the part and it remains flipped/inverted.  Then you click edit appearance and in edit mode it appears correct, then exit and it flips.  AAAAHHHH! 

Now for my favorite one.  Decals will be the death of me.  Apply two decals overlapping and render.  I do this every day, several times a day.  It works most of the time with no glitches.  Today on a particular part that I use in several assemblies/projects (and have rendered with success 30 or so times) the graphics flipped.  Not in the window but only after rendering.  This is the first time this has happened on this part.  Basically the "bottom" graphic completely hid the "top" graphic.  Close the file, open it, no change.  Click move decal up, no change.  Close solidworks, restart computer, no change.  Delete and reapply decals, no change.  Hide the "bottom" graphic, hidden one renders fine, like it should.  Delete part and rebuild, works but thats crap.  No matter what I did it would not work. Once again I have rendered this 30 times with no issue, then one day its perma-f**ked

Oh ok, one more for laughs.  I got my assembly ready, render on screen for a preview, looks great, just needs minor lighting adjustment or something.  Make the change and rerender, looks great.  Repeat until satisfied, all the while rendering on screen appears as expected.  Then when everything is perfect, render to file.  Output -  all parts are default grey, decals show up, but no colors.  OR Colors show up, but one (never all) decal will not.  Once again this is not very often, but when any of these things happen I can't get rid of it without shutting down then reapplying all appearances.

Do you all deal with kind of stuff and just suck it up?  I started with 2006, and had some issues, went from 07 to 09 and had some improvement but I feel like I traded one set of issues for another.  10 is no better.

Ryan

If anyone actually reads this and cares, let me know I will post a part with issues.  I got the perfect one too- one corner face of a fillet cannot be selected for appearance, it selects for second then deselects itself.  I did a offset surface a few .001"s, applied appearance there for rendering.  HAHA